Why Did a Sheep, a Duck and a Cockerel Go Up in a Hot Air Balloon?
A sheep, a duck and a cockerel went up in a hot air balloon: this sounds like the beginning of a joke, but in 1783, it was quite serious. That was when these three animals made the first "manned" balloon flight.
According to legend, the idea for a hot air balloon came into being while doing the housework. As Joseph Montgolfier dried his laundry by the fire and watched his clothes bulge from the heat, he had an idea: if he did the same thing with a large white cloth and a smaller burner, could he make a kind of flying machine? It turned out to be worth a try, for in 1783, Joseph and his brother Étienne Montgolfier created the very first version of the hot air balloon. That one took off successfully from the market square in Annonay.
Royal test flight
The first balloon flight was immediately big news. After their experiment, the Montgolfier brothers were invited by the French Academy of Sciences to present their invention on 19 September 1783. Location: the Palace of Versailles. In the audience: the French King Louis XVI and Queen Marie-Antoinette.
Along with 130,000 spectators, the royal couple witnessed the first successful manned flight. Well, kind of manned. Joseph and Etienne did not dare to risk their own lives, so they suspended a basket under the balloon containing a sheep, a duck and a cockerel. According to the brothers, their choice of animals was scientifically sound. In their view the physiology of the sheep was similar to that of humans. A duck was a high-flying bird and thus could not be injured. And the cockerel acted as an extra controlling element, since it was also a bird, but one that did not fly at high altitudes.
The test flight from Versailles lasted 8 minutes. The balloon travelled just over 3 kilometres and landed safely in a field, where the three animals were found to be alive and well.
People on board
Two months after the farm animals embarked on their historic flight, the brothers decided it was time for the first manned, free-flight hot-air balloon. There were two people on board: Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and the Marquis François Laurent d'Arlandes. They flew from central Paris out to the suburbs, covering about 9 km in 25 minutes.
Experiments
Despite these successes, the inventors did not actually understand the physics of balloon flight very well. They thought they had discovered a new kind of gas that was lighter than air, but in fact it was just air. It was the fact that the air was hotter and therefore lighter than the surrounding air that allowed the balloon to rise.
After continuing experimentation with different types of gases, balloon travel finally claimed its first victim. Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier was killed in 1785 trying to cross the English Channel in a balloon filled with a mixture of helium and air, because the balloon exploded. One of the very first balloonists therefore became the first victim of a balloon accident.